Fire-alarm apparatus



S. D. COOPER.

Fire Alarm.-

-Patented Aug. 6, 1861.

UNITED STATES PATEN T CFFTCTZ.

SAMUEL D. COOPER, O1 HARTFORD, CONNECTICUT.

FIRE-ALARM APPARATUS.

Specification of Letters Patent No. 32,980, dated August 6, 1861.

To all whom it may concern:

Be it known that I, SAMUEL D. COOPER, of Hartford, in the county of Hartford and State of Connecticut, have invented a new and Improved Fire-Alarm Apparatus; and

I do hereby declare that the following is a full, clear, and exact description of the same, reference. being had to the accompanying drawings, forming part of this specification, in wh1ch Figure 1, is a front view of the alarm. Fig. 2, is a vertical section of the same. Fig. 3, is a plan of the same.

Similar letters of reference indicate corresponding parts in the several figures.

The object of my invention is to give an instantaneous alarm in case of a fire occurring in any part of a building or its appurtenances, or of a steam boat or other vessel, and to show at once in what apartment or place the fire has originated, thereby enabling the efforts to extinguish it to be at once directed to the right spot, and obviating all loss of time in seeking for its location.

My improved apparatus, though giving a prolonged alarm, partakes somewhat of the general character of what is known as an annunciator used in hotels and steam boats, that is to say, it is composed of a single alarm device which may be placed in any conspicuous place anda series of separate liberating contrivances, so applied in combination with said alarm device and with cords, threads or filaments of combustible material in the several apartments or appurtenances of the building or vessel, and in relation to a suitable board, tablet or dial, that 011 the occurrence of fire in any part of the building, premises or vessel the liberating contrivance belonging to that part will liberate the alarm device and cause the sounding of the alarm, and assume such a position relatively to the said board, tablet or dial, that it may be seen which one has operated, and so enable the exact spot where the fire has occurred to be made known.

To enable others skilled in the art to make and use my invention I will proceed to describe its construction and operation.

A. B. C. is a boX or frame supporting the principal parts of my apparatus, which constitute what may be termed the annunciator, the back part A. being intended to be screwed of otherwise secured to the wall, or

to a partition or bulkhead in the hall, oilice, or other part of a building or vessel, and the front board C. constituting a tablet on which the location of the fire is announced when the alarm is given.

D. is an alarm bell secured at the back of the board C, and E. is the hammer for sounding the alarm on said bell. also attached by a pivot (Z, to the back of the said board.

G. is a wheel whose arms constitute wipers to act upon and produce the striking movement of the hammer, said wheel being fitted loosely to a short arbor a, which has one bearing in the board C. and another in a fixed bar F. secured at the back of the said board. This arbor has secured to it a drum H. and ratchet wheel I. the latter operating in connection with a pawl 0, attached to the wheel G. and the former having wound upon it a cord Z), from which is suspended a weight J. for driving the wheel G. and so actuating the hammer. The pawl c, and ratchet wheel 1. permit the winding up of the cord by a key applied to a square on the arbor a, as in a clock movement.

The wheel G. is toothed on its outer circumference to enable it to be locked by a lever K. which works on a fixed fulcrum e, in a bracket L. secured to the back of the board C. and which passes through a slot in the said board, and is weighted at its front end as shown at K. in such manner that when not otherwise supported it drops to a position shown in red outline in Fig. 2, in which it leaves the wheel G. unlocked and free to be rotated by the action of the weight J.; and Z, is a spring for producing the blow of thehammer and m, a spring for drawing it back from the bell. P. is a flier having on its shaft 7), a pinion a, through which it derives motion from the teeth of the wheel G. to prevent the weight running down too rapidly when the latter wheel is liberated. M. is a stud secured to the upper part of the board C. directly over the lever K. and serving to attach a cord f, by which the weighted front end of the said lever is held up and the said lever is caused to lock the wheel G. until a fire occurs.

N. N. are a series of knives attached to slides O. O. fitted to grooves in the board C. one slide and knife for every one or as many as desired of the rooms or apartments, in a house or vessel, and, in case of a country house, one for each or as many as desired of the out-buildings. The said knives I and slides are so'arranged relatively to the cord 7, half on each side of it, and the said slides have springs g, 9, so applied to them that either one of the knives is capable of a movement by which it may cut the said cord and so let down the weighted end of the lever K. and liberate the wheel G. and permit the alarm to be given.

One of the slides and its knife are shown in Fig. 1 in a position in which the knife would have cut the cord, which is represented in that condition in red outline in the same figure. The several slides communicate with their several rooms, apartments or other places by means of cords guided by pulleys or more suitably by means of wires 6, i, and cranks like bell-wires, and the end of each of the said cords, or pieces of cord h, h, attached to the wires 2', i, as shown in Figs. 1 and 3 is wound once around a stud or peg 7', secured in the wall of the apartment or in any suitable support, and to the end of the said cord there is tied a thread 70, which passes all around the room or place to be protected, and is suitably secured. A very light thread is suitable for this purpose as the friction of the cord h, on the stud or peg j, makes it require very little force to hold it. The said threads may be saturated with some combustible substances to render them easy of ignition and they may have suspended from them other threads which will be nearly invisible, pieces of fine quick match, or prepared paper.

To set the apparatus the slides O. O. are all drawn back so that their knives are out of the way of the cord f, and are so secured by their respective cords h, and threads 70, 70, as just above described. hen a fire occurs in any apartment or place where a thread 70, is arranged, the said thread must at once ignite, and being instantly burned through, it liberates the cord h, and so leaves its respective slide N. entirely under the control of its spring 9, which at once moves it toward the thread f, and causes its knife to sever the said thread and so let fall the lever K. and liberate the alarm mechanism which at once sounds the alarm.

The board C. has marked upon it, in such positions as to be covered by their respective slides N. N. when the apparatus is set, the names or numbers of the rooms, cabins or other places with which the several slides communicate. When the slide has been liberated as above described and has given the alarm, its movement has uncovered and 'eX- posed to view its respective name or number and so been made to indicate the whereabouts of the fire as illustrated in Fig. 1, in which fire is supposed to have occurred in the bed-room.

Instead of sounding an alarm bell the same system of slides and knives may be made to sound a whistle or cause the discharge of fire arms or some explosive article.

What I claim as my invention and desire to secure by Letters Patent is 1. The combination with an alarm device of a series of knives N. N. or other equivalent liberating contrivances, so communicating with the several apartments or appurtenances of the building or vessel, and so arranged in connection with a tablet or dial that, on the liberation of the alarm device by the operation of any one of the liberating contrivances produced by the occurrence of fire in its respective apartment or part of the premises or vessel, the said liberating contrivance will assume such a position on the tablet or dial that it may be seen which one has operated and the spot where the fire has occurred may be made known, substantially as herein described.

2. The combination of the weighted locking and unlocking lever K. of the alarm device, the cord f, for keeping the said lever in position to lock the alarm device, and the knives N. N., the whole arranged and operating substantially as and for the purpose herein specified.

SAML D. COOPER.

WVitnesses J. B. BROWN, VVM. LINKE. 

